Fanny Newcomb and the Irish Channel Ripper by Ana Brazil

Gilded Age New Orleans is overrun with prostitutes, pornographers, and a malicious Jack the Ripper copycat. As threatening letters to newspaper editors proclaim, no woman is safe from his blade.

Desperate to know who murdered her favorite student, ambitious typewriting teacher Fanny Newcomb launches into a hunt for the self-proclaimed Irish Channel Ripper.

Fanny quickly enlists her well-connected employers—Principal Sylvia Giddings and her sister Dr. Olive—to help, and the women forge through saloons, cemeteries, slums, and houses of prostitution in their pursuit.

About the Author

A native of California, Ana Brazil lived in the south for many years. She earned her MA in American history from Florida State University and traveled her way through Mississippi as an architectural historian. Ana loves fried mullet, Greek Revival colonnades, and Miss Welty’s garden. She has a weakness for almost all things New Orleans. (Although she’s not sure just how it happened…but she favors bluegrass over jazz.)

The Fanny Newcomb stories celebrate the tenacity, intelligence, and wisdom of the dozens of courageous and outrageous southern women that Ana is proud to call friends.

Although Ana, her husband, and their dog Traveller live in the beautiful Oakland foothills, she is forever drawn to the lush mystique of New Orleans, where Fanny Newcomb and her friends are ever prepared to seek a certain justice.

Excerpt

Fanny hurried the boy through the dark halls toward the back
of Wisdom Hall. She barged through the Infirmary door to find Olive looking up
from behind a table of dark apothecary bottles.

“Well,” the doctor asked sharply. “What is it?”

Fanny put her hand gently on Liam’s shoulders, “He sa—”

“Murder!” The boy honked like a trumpet. “A girl’s been
murdered in Conner’s Court!”

“Murdered girls don’t need doctors.” Olive scowled at Liam
and returned two of the bottles to the cupboard behind her. “Even you should
know that.”

“They said she was
murdered…but somebody screamed for a doctor.”

Fanny pressed forward gingerly, having been told more than
once that the Infirmary was Olive’s sacred soil, and entrance was by invitation
only. “If there’s any chance she’s still alive, we must—”

“Of course we must.” Olive took a key from her pocket and
turned the lock on the medicine cupboard. She grabbed her medical bag and
passed the lantern on her desk to Liam. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Giveaway

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